The Causal Effect of Federal Work-Study Participation: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from West Virginia

Scott-Clayton, Judith

Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, v33 n4 p506-527 Dec 2011

Since 1964, the Federal Work-Study (FWS) program has provided funds to subsidize the wages of student employees, but it has never been studied directly. I use an instrumental variables difference-in-difference framework with administrative data from West Virginia to identify causal effects, comparing eligible and ineligible students across institutions with higher and lower FWS availability and using differences in FWS availability to instrument for actual FWS participation. I find no evidence that FWS participation improves academic outcomes for the full sample, but this masks significant negative effects for women and some significant positive effects for men. Although results should be interpreted cautiously given limitations of the sample, they represent the first direct, quasi-experimental evidence regarding the effect of the program. (Contains 8 tables, 2 figures and 23 notes.)